On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider legislation aimed at reining in abusive patent litigation. But one of the bill's most important provisions, designed to make it easier to nix low-quality software patents, will be left on the cutting room floor. That provision was the victim of an aggressive lobbying campaign by patent-rich software companies such as IBM and Microsoft.

These companies also happen to have the largest lobbying corruption budgets. This is never going to change.

They haven't sued the most, they haven't patented the most, they don't sue over SEPs, but they are sued the most over patents and they are an "inspiration" to a number of competitors. And funny enough, they aren't on this list.

Ah, Google the SEP suer (via Motorola of course), but that's just one of the many things you can blame them for. Well, not YOU of course.

All companies, including Apple, do stuff we don't like. You just like to single out Apple and/or promote them to be the biggest baddy of all while you let other companies completely off the hook.

Apple became patent-aggresive after the Google betrayal with Android. Like it or dislike it, but Apple sues within the law and rules. Unlike, let's pick Google and Samsung, who abuse SEPs. Blame the system, not the players.

It's like claiming a sport player is evil, because within the rules he's better than anyone else and promoting players who break the rules in order to stop the best player to heros.

The system is now challenged, but on a list of companies not liking this there is no Apple to be seen, yet still you claim them to be the worst. They are the #1 target for patent trolls. They should love a change of rules.

They can never do any good in your eyes. Even if they do you'll suggest a hidden evil motive.

It's simple, if companies rip off Apple Apple strikes back. But this procedure can be so lengthy and the punishment so small that a company like Samsung will keep doing it because it makes them more money in the end.

As most patent trolls do. Current laws and rules have too many holes. MS was targeted by patent trolls as well, they don't oppose the reform when it's affecting NPEs, but they oppose reform which affects their fake patents. Why Apple isn't on the list is interesting though, since I don't see their position being too different from Microsoft's on this one.

The US patent system for more than 200 years has succeeded spectacularly in promoting “the progress of science and useful arts,” as the Founders intended, in part because it has always provided the same incentives for all types of inventions. To expand and make permanent the CBM program would be to turn ill-advisedly and irrevocably in a new direction — discriminating against an entire class of technology innovation.

So, the mess they created with software patents is "spectacular"? Disgusting.

There is a new breed of biotech companies which are taking things to really really creepy venues. Forget Software Patents, there are groups moving proactively to allow for the patenting genes and other naturally occurring stuffs.

They had some recent setbacks to their positions lately, but they are amassing some serious $$$ for legal battles in that regard. Patenting nature is a greedy asshole's wet dream.

That's where it gets tricky. Some of these companies/industries depend on patents just for survival, mainly those in research. In other circles (say the medical or construction equivalent of OSnews), patents may well be revered.

Last week, IBM escalated its campaign against expanding the CBM program. An IBM spokesman told Politico, "While we support what Mr. Goodlatte’s trying to do on trolls, if the CBM is included, we’d be forced to oppose the bill."

Why should it matter to the government if IBM would be forced to oppose the bill? Is IBM a senator now?

Why should it matter to the government if IBM would be forced to oppose the bill? Is IBM a senator now?

Yes, I would see how intuitively a person not familiar with US politics would think this, but since in America money equals speech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo), political life has become so centered on campaign contributions that pretty much anything having to do with the spirit of democracy has been erased. Your surprise here is quite understandable, as anywhere else in the world people still recognize this as blatant bribery (and many in America still do as well, which is why significant amounts of money are spent on keeping this little tidbit off of the evening cable news cast).

I'm not surprised that it happened. I'm surprised it was said so openly, and it is openly understood that campaign bribery is what they meant by it. I'm further surprised that there's no real backlash against politicians cowering in the face of such blatant threat and bribery.

Why should it matter to the government if IBM would be forced to oppose the bill?

Because it would mean that IBM would stop bribing senators. Oh wait, sorry, did I say bribe? I mean "support their campaigns" because we all know that lobbying is absolutely not, in any way at all, legalized corruption.

Patents I guess you could say were originally designed to protect invention (some might say intellectual property) so that new "things" could be brought to market effectively without fear of being "stolen" by somebody that was bigger and more powerful than the originator.

Unfortunately, now, if you create a patent, it's likely that any attempt to bring that "invention" to market would likely step on other patents, which means the only hope is to sell out to a bigger patent holder. This seems to be how it usually goes.

So.. here's my proposal. Make the lifetime of the patent be variable based on the "size" (however that is determined) of the patent holder (the true holder not someone licensing). Thus the "little" guy now has a better chance of bring something to market since it's likely that patents that would be used to coerce/force sale of they guy's patent might be expired.

Something has got to be done. Right now, the likes of IBM are gearing up for an ultimate technology war.. where the survivor is the one with the most patents... and can I say, this was not the intention of the patent system?